He Called by Name

Moshe was standing outside the new Mishkan, waiting. Then a voice said his name - just his name - before saying anything else. That is how you call someone you love.

Why does the verse bother to tell us that Hashem called Moshe before He spoke to him? Rashi says the call is lashon chibah, a word of affection, the way angels call to one another. It is the difference between someone firing instructions at you and someone saying your name first and waiting until you look up. An entire book of law begins with a relationship rather than a rule.

Rashi notes that every dibbur, amirah and command to Moshe was preceded by a call, and that this call is lashon chibah - the language angels use with one another, as in Yeshayahu’s vekara zeh el zeh. Note also what the verse conspicuously omits: it does not say who called. The subject only appears in the second clause, as though the Torah wants the call itself to land before the Caller is named. A long-standing scribal tradition writes the alef of vayikra small, and later commentators read it against Bamidbar 23:4, where Hashem merely happens upon Bilaam - vayikar, chance and coincidence, the same letters without the alef. Moshe is called; Bilaam is met. The small letter guards the difference between being summoned by name and being encountered by accident.

Hashem tells Moshe what to teach everyone. If you want to bring a gift to Hashem, bring an animal from your own cattle or your own sheep - something that is really yours. The Hebrew word for that gift is korban, and it means coming close.

If Hashem does not need our animals, what is an offering actually for? The word itself answers: korban comes from k-r-v, the root of karov, close. It is not a payment or a bribe to calm Hashem down; it is a way of closing distance, and it works precisely because it costs you something you owned. Rashi points out that the verse says adam rather than ish, recalling Adam HaRishon, who could not have offered anything stolen because everything was already his - you may not come close to Hashem using something that is not honestly yours.

Two arguments live in this verse. On the word adam, Rashi reads it against Adam HaRishon: he brought nothing from theft, since everything belonged to him, and neither may you. On the purpose of the whole system, Rambam in the Moreh Nevuchim treats the korbanot largely as a concession to the historical moment, weaning Israel off the sacrificial worship of the surrounding nations by redirecting it. Ramban rejects this sharply, insisting the offerings express something intrinsic rather than merely transitional. The grammar sides with Ramban’s instinct: yakriv, korban and takrivu all sit on k-r-v, nearness, and the verse repeats the root three times in a single line. Later teachers read mikem not only as from among you but as from yourselves - the animal is the vehicle, and the person is what is actually brought near.